Police Chief and Two Other Officials Charged for Professional Negligence Linked to Itaewon Crushing Disaster
It looks like personnel who will take the fall for the bungled police response to the Itaewon Crushing Disaster have been identified:
The now-suspended police chief in the district of Yongsan has been booked for an investigation, along with the head of the Yongsan Ward office and two others, on charges of professional negligence resulting in death in connection with the deadly Itaewon crowd crush, officials said Monday.
Police and fire authorities, and the Yongsan Ward office have been under fire following revelations that there had been warning signs before the deadly accident, but they did little to prevent it or to respond in a timely manner.
The investigation team said the four officials booked for a formal investigation are Lee Im-jae, who was relieved of duty as Yongsan Police Station chief following the crush; Yongsan Ward office chief Park Hee-young; senior emergency monitoring officer Ryu Mi-jin, who was in charge at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on the day of the accident; and chief of the Yongsan Fire Station Choi Seong-beom.
Police documents and investigation results have shown that about a dozen emergency calls came in warning of a dangerous level of overcrowding in Itaewon in the few hours leading up to the Oct. 29 crush that killed 156 Halloween partygoers, mostly people in their 20s.
The investigation team said a charge of negligence of duty has been additionally applied to Lee for allegedly having arrived at the accident site too late and belatedly informing the top police command of the emergency situation.
Choi, meanwhile, has been suspected of failing to promptly communicate with police and respond to the emergency, while Park has been accused of neglecting her duties to come up with sufficient crowd control planning and accident prevention measures for the big Halloween gatherings.
Ryu, meanwhile, has been accused of having been absent from her seat at the situation monitoring room on the night of the deadly crowd crush.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the blame is definitely being spread around to the police, government officials, and the fire department.
Hmmm.
There is no way that 50% of the blamed are women…
…unless…
…somebody needs blamed, so let’s blame the women.
…or…
…our diversity hires are incompetent.
The only reason to blame anyone but the crowd is to display cowardice.
If the any members of the crowd needed nannies, they should not have been allowed out after dark, should not have been allowed to cross the street without their mommies present and holding their hand, and should not have been drinking in public with adults.
Setnaffa, while the victims are to “blame” more than anyone else, I don’t really blame them.
It isn’t stupid… just life inexperience and negligence on the part of older people who are teaching the wrong things and not developing common sense in the younger generation.
Most people don’t really see danger coming, can easily get caught up in something and swept away, and even in clear danger they experience normalcy bias… which is what the entire world is doing now over the very real probability of world war.
(Unless someone has a better idea to mange the fact that the biggest expense in America’s budget is now interest on the debt).
If the government wanted to do something about this, just institute an education campaign about crowd dynamics.
Koreans are good at accepting this and the government has been good about doing it.
…think waiting in line and other international social norms before the 88 Olympics… clean bathrooms before the 2002 world cup… trash/recycling programs the public embraced… etc.
“Be careful in large crowds and look for these warning signs,” is a simple campaign… especially now the public is focused on it.
Problem solved.
The Trumpians are up in arms again. This can’t go on. Can’t.
Just to show that the Setnaffarians are wrong in that no police was necessary
https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20221031-67983/
An article about the Tokyo Metropolitan Police deploying in large numbers during Halloween celebrations in Shibuya to ensure that the tragedy that happened in Itaewon does not happen.
So tell us Dear Comrade Setnaffoving and Minions, if police is not needed than why does Japan deploy its police during large Halloween celebrations.
And let’s not forget that Japan is run by a conservative right-wing government.
This can’t go on. Can’t.
It is our duty as Koreans of the ROK Drop to prevent the Setnaffarians/Trumpians from ruining the Korean way of life.
The Chinese are surfs at heart.
Online, it is always easy to spot the Chinese and low-IQ Koreans.